1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for merging wireless telephone service with existing wired telephone equipment in a facility.
2. Description of Related Art
Mobile, also called wireless, telephones are becoming more prevalent in today's society. Many households have at least one mobile telephone and many businesses now issue wireless telephones to their employees. However, the mobile phone and phones used within the home or business facilities are rarely the same. Moreover, the mobile phone typically has a different telephone number than the telephones in the home or business facilities. For example, a telephone service subscriber may have a first telephone number assigned to the land-line telephones in his/her home and a second telephone number assigned to his/her mobile telephone.
Thus, telephone service subscribers must pay for two separate telephone subscriptions and cope with having two different telephone numbers. Furthermore, the persons that will attempt to contact the subscriber must be made aware of both telephone numbers and often must try both telephone numbers when attempting to contact the subscriber.
Many subscribers would prefer to use their mobile telephones everywhere and discontinue their subscriptions to wired telephone service. There are many reasons why users may prefer to use their mobile telephones. First, many services that have extra fees associated with them in a wired telephone service are free with mobile telephone service subscriptions, including CallerID and VoiceMail. Second, the cost of usage may, depending on the mobile telephone service subscription plan, be less than that of wired service.
On the other hand, with wired telephone service, many wired telephones may be connected and use the same telephone number with no additional cost. In addition wire telephone units are typically cheaper than mobile telephones (unless they are purchased through special incentive offers provided by mobile telephone service providers). Thus, it would be beneficial to have an apparatus and method for merging mobile telephone service with existing wired telephone service equipment in facilities.